"Wake up already, you lazy arse!"
Sherlock woke up to see Victor standing near the end of the bed, glaring at him. "Get dressed, Sherl. We're going to go out for the day because you've been such a good little boyfriend." Victor smiled coldly. "See that you remain that way."
Victor left the room, shutting and locking the door behind him. Sherlock slid carefully out of bed and, walking across to the small dresser that housed his and Victor's clothes, took in his appearance in the mirror.
He looked awful.
His eyes were ringed with dark purple circles, a combination of sleep deprivation and bruising. There was a glowing reddish-brown hickey on his neck and fingernail marks on his chest and back. His backside hurt like hell, and he was fairly sure that one of his fingers was broken.
He carefully opened the dresser and shifted ancient smelly blankets and old, dirty sheets to reveal a small, brown box, wrapped carefully in his favorite purple shirt. He unwound the purple shirt and was about to toss it in the corner when he changed his mind and pulled it over his bare shoulders. After all, it was the only shirt of his very own that he had. He took a deep breath. The shirt smelled like home…like John. Was he ever going to see John again? He sighed, holding back tears (because Sherlock Holmes did not cry, no sir) and tenderly picked up the nondescript brown box. He sat back on the bed and flipped the lid open, trying to keep control over his emotions.
The first thing in the box was a picture of him and John. It had been taken the night after their first meeting, the night that they chased a cab driver all around London. They were laughing, and John laughing was a beautiful and adorable thing, Sherlock had decided. He had hacked into Mycroft's computer one day during a dinner with the family and printed off the photo from the CCTV footage. It was by far his favorite photo of them both.
He pulled out a small stack of other photos, bound by a rubber band. He pulled the rubber band off gently and spread the pictures on the bed. There were two of John; in one, he was asleep at the table wearing his favorite jumper with a cold cup of tea in front of him; the other was a picture from his army days, shirtless, wearing a pair of army-issued trousers and looking very tan and muscular. Sherlock loved that picture; it made John look absolutely flawless.
There was one of Lestrade, looking exasperated as he always did when Sherlock was around; one of Mrs. Hudson, smiling at the camera and mouthing something that looked like Sherlock; one of Molly, working with Sherlock next to the body of an old man in the morgue; there was even one of Mycroft, with his ever-present look of cool, collected calm on his face.
Next, Sherlock pulled out a small, pink object, and smiled. It was the phone, from their first case. He had gotten a different one, after the case was over with, and had kept this one in perfect working order just in case it broke (and he supposed that yes, sentiment did have something to do with it). Sometime when Victor went out without him (he would eventually feel the need to have a night away, most likely at the pub, Sherlock theorized) he was going to use the phone to call John and reassure him…and hopefully tell him where he was and what was happening.
After that, the objects were mostly simple mementoes that had similar meanings to the phone. There was a small can of yellow spray paint from the Chinese smugglers case, a certain memory stick that Sherlock had never actually given back (it was good to have blackmail material…that little data holder had gotten him out of a fair amount of Christmas dinners), a little bag of sesame seeds (barbecue-John's favorite flavor), an old, empty tube of lipstick from a certain morgue assistant (she had left it at Baker Street during the Christmas party and Sherlock needed some for an experiment; he told himself often that he only kept it because he always forgot to throw it out, but that wasn't quite true), four of Lestrade's ID badges (Sherlock had taken to pickpocketing him whenever he was being stupid, which was quite often, actually), a spare set of keys to the flat, and an old, smushed, familiar deerstalker that had gained him quite a bit of fame, and had also been part of his downfall.
He looked fondly at these items. The box was the only thing he had thought to grab before he was dragged away by Victor; he had smuggled it out under his shirt. The box held his life; the box had his heart inside it, all the things he held most dear. If anyone were ever to find it, Sherlock would be devastated. He told himself that worse things could happen (decapitation and strangulation and other nasty things like that were much worse than losing a little box), but deep down he knew that this box could very well expose to his enemies every last thing he held close to him. He definitely had to keep it away from Victor; if he found it, life would be disastrous.
Sherlock heard a sudden movement in the hallway and quickly arranged the items and photographs back in the box, stuffing it back under his small amount of clothes in the dresser. He really needed to find a better place to hide it, Sherlock mused as he pulled his only pair of trousers over his tight black pants. He searched around for a belt for almost five minutes, and the only one he could find was an old one of Victor's. Sherlock didn't want a piece of anything that had touched Victor's body on him, but he really did need a belt; he had lost even more weight in the time that Victor had taken him and if he didn't have a belt or suspenders or something to hold his trousers up, he would have a time going out in public. He settled for tossing the belt aside and using an old tie to cinch the stained black trousers around his ever-diminishing waistline.
"Hello? I don't have all day, Sherl. Hurry up before I get angry." Victor yelled from the front door. Sherlock bolted out the door, heading towards his abuser and desperately wishing he had one of John's jumpers to get him through the day.